


Where We Are (Count to Five)

by lovelylittleavocado



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Gen, I'm Sorry, Please Don't Hate Me, but i think it's happy too, i heard this song and it made me want to, i just needed to get it out, this gets pretty sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 07:47:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6745498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelylittleavocado/pseuds/lovelylittleavocado
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Count to five and a million things can change. Thinking I can't be serious? Just wait and see.</p><p>I've made a few small edits, nothing too serious, and fixed the grammar mistakes (or the ones I could see.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where We Are (Count to Five)

**One**

“You can’t be serious.” Adrien stood stalk still, the spoon he had been using to stir the pasta held up mid-air, his mouth open and jaw slack with surprise.

I couldn’t control the feelings I had been holding inside anymore, letting out a small squeal of excitement while I nodded my head vigorously. He let the wooden spoon clatter to the floor of our small townhouse kitchen as he ran to me. I laughed with the ease of someone whose whole life has just fallen into place, because mine had. He lifted me into the air spinning us all around our tiny living room space.

“Adrien! Adrien!” I giggled as he pulled me closer to him, never letting me out of his embrace and never stopping our hurricane of a spin. He began to pepper my face with chaste kisses wherever he could find space, eliciting even more involuntary giggles from my chest.

“Adrien I’m getting dizzy! Chaton please!” He stopped immediately, placing me on the floor with a steadying hand on my shoulder and another on my stomach. He searched my eyes, almost as if he were looking for some sort of magical change that he was shocked he hadn’t noticed before this moment. I grabbed his hand from my shoulder and brushed a kiss across his knuckles as he had done countless times when we were teenagers. This made a wonderfully goofy grin spread across his face, a smile of pure joy that I could live off of for the rest of my days. He leaned down and placed the most gentle kiss on my lips, our mouths parting ever so slightly to give it depth. When he leaned away he whispered, as if the news were a secret meant only for us.

“I’m gonna be a dad.”

**Two**

“You can’t be serious.” I flipped the price tag in my hand over again from front to back, checking to make the sure the price I had read was  _ actually  _ the price. “Three thousand dollars!?! For a crib! Are you people insane?” Mari placed a soothing hand on my arm, her silent signal that this was a battle we would have to attack together, just like old times. She cleared her throat and placed a hand on her distended stomach, focusing her attention on the sales clerk.

“Listen, um…” she quickly peeked at the boy’s nametag, “Stewart. I know that you have no reason to sell us this crib at a lowered price. I mean, you do work at a baby store, so we  _ can’t  _ be the first parents expecting a baby to walk through these doors.” She flashed him a charming smile and he continued to stare at her with the same blank expression I had been faced with for the past twenty minutes. Mari cleared her throat again.

“Listen, you seem like a nice boy. Really. But do you see my husband?” Stewart glanced at me and I waved. She continued on. “Does he look somewhat familiar to you? At all?”

Stewart glanced at me again with what appeared to be the smallest form of concentration possible before looking back at Mari and shaking his head no.

My beautiful wife sighed and pinched the little spot between her eyebrows on the bridge of her nose as if she were an annoyed librarian. Poor Stewart was definitely going to get it.

“That man behind me is Adrien Dupain-Cheng Agreste, the man who single-handedly saved Paris! He gave away his inherited wealth to our citizens in need so that we might be a greater city. Ring any bells pal?”

He looked at me again and some actual emotion crossed his face. I think it was admiration.

As Mari and I walked out of the store, her carrying a few bags of baby clothes triumphantly, me holding our one thousand dollar crib, I let out a sigh of relief. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of knowing how uncomfortable the objects over the price range of three were making me, and how thankful I was that she had gotten the price under two. I looked down at her, a swell of pride rushing into my chest.

“You know using our charitable actions as bribery isn’t the point of charitable actions.”

She looked up at me with a pout as if I had wounded her and I threw her a lopsided smile in return.

“I know,” she said with an easy smile, “but it doesn’t hurt, considering all of the other saving we’ve done in our lives, right,  _ Chaton _ ?”

I couldn’t disagree with her there.

**Three**

“You can’t be serious!” I hated when we fought, but I couldn’t let him win this war. “Our child deserves to be a miraculous holder! If Master Fu wants to give he or she the chance once they’re old enou-” he raised his hand to cut me off. I scoffed at the action, darting my eyes between his hand and his face to convey my level of disgust.

“Mari I get why you’re upset, but you’re not hearing me!”

“Adrien the miraculouses they…. they changed our lives! I want our child to taste that! To have that experience!”

He shook his head at me, his short blond hairs moving ever so slightly like grass caught in the wind. It’s not that I didn’t understand where he was coming from. I did. I knew the dangers of holding a miraculous, but I also knew the benefits, and so did he. He should get this.

My miraculous was the key to my bravery. It unlocked a part of myself that I’m afraid, should I never have received it, I wouldn’t have today. It taught me the value of life, and of doing what’s right. It also taught me how to trust and how to open myself to those who are most important and most deserving. It was dancing on my college dorm rooftop at 3 a.m. with my crime-fighting partner and lover. It was feeling my heartbeat in my legs as I ran faster and pushed harder, harsh winds whipping across my face as I sprinted in the night. It was soaring like a bullet, piercing the air with my body as I felt everything rushing to embrace me until the moment when I pulled away and faced the heavens. It was being fourteen again, nervous about whether or not I could have the courage to put those magical earrings back on. It was  _ everything.  _

I went to vocalize this to Adrien, opening my mouth as I looked at him, but instead my words failed me and nothing escaped my mouth. Instead I felt myself begin to cry, salty tears hanging from my lashes before they left their own unique trail down my cheek. He crossed the distance between us in a heartbeat and embraced me, stroking my hair as a felt a sob finally break the silence of my throat. 

“I know, I know,” he whispered soothingly. “You don’t have to say it. I know. I just…” he tilted my head off of his shoulder so that we could look at one another.

“I feel like once we have our kid, I’m not going to want to give them to the world. They didn’t deserve you, and I…. I don’t want to lose them to the world. I don’t want. I don’t want to lose you.” 

I watched as all of Adrien’s seams loosened until he was the one crying and I guided him to the couch, the both of us sitting there and simply holding one another. 

“You won’t lose me Adrien. You’ll always have me.” I whispered my sickly sweet words into his neck until I felt his tension unwind and his eventual steady breaths of sleep came. I rested my head on his chest and closed my own eyes, laying there feeling the rise and fall that matched the tempo of his heart.

**Four**

“You can’t be serious.” My words were less than a whisper, ghosts of words that should have filled the air. As the doctor only shook his head, a solemn expression plastered on his face, my stomach dropped.  _ This can’t be happening. It’s not real. It’s not real.  _ He said something else, probably some shitty apologies and remarks about how hard he knew this was, but I couldn’t hear him. Everything sounded a million miles away, and he couldn’t know anyway. He didn’t know. How could he know?

I walked into the hospital room and saw Marinette lying on the bed, her stomach flat and her skin a sickeningly white, translucent color. She turned her head slowly when she heard the door click behind me, and when she saw my face she smiled, all soft and warm, everything Marinette. She was still beautiful. She was always so beautiful.

“Hey,” she croaked out, her voice hoarse from hours of painful screaming in labor, only to find out her efforts were of no use. “How’s the baby?” Her question was painful. How was I supposed to tell her I hadn’t seen the kid yet? How could I tell her that from the moment the doctor opened his mouth I had been building a resentment toward the  _ thing  _ that was going to... that was taking her…

I cleared the pain and anger out of my throat, not wanting her to catch on, and gave a weal smile. “She’s okay, they tell me.”

“She.” Marinette's soft smile returned and she reached for my hand. I took it as though I were drowning and it was the only lifeline that could keep my head above the water. I couldn't hide the pain anymore, and apparently, neither could she.

“I know I’m dying. I know.”

That hit me.  _ She knew. She had already given in.  _

“You don’t die today,” I managed to choke out. 

Silent tears began to fall down Marinette’s paper thin cheeks and she closed her eyes, only to open them a moment later as if she didn’t want to lose one moment of taking in the world around her. Of taking in me. And her hand in mine. She drew in a shaky breath before speaking again.

“You have to take care of her for the both of us. Don’t push her away. Even if you look at her, and you see me, don’t push her away. Don’t push away what hurts and what you don’t understand. Embrace her. And if you need to let the tears fall let them fall my darling Chat. It’s never been a weakness to cry.” She wiped away one of my boundless tears at this as though she were making a point. 

“Will you name her Emma? I know you wanted to name her An-”

“Of course I’ll name her Emma, Princess.” I strained to smile at her, smiling at the fact that she would even still ask. She’s so considerate. I love her. I love her I love her I love her. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me. 

She watched my smile fall as the situation hit me once more and she rubbed her thumb across my knuckles. 

“You can’t leave me Marinette. I love you. We’re meant to be. I don’t know… You once told me that you didn’t know who Ladybug would be without Chat Noir. Before we revealed ourselves. Well I…. I don’t know who I’m going to be without you. You’re my world and I…. I don’t think I can… I’m not going to be able to live Marinette. I love you. You’re  _ everything.  _ Every time you look at me you knock me out, and it’s like the first time we met all over again. I can’t go on without that. My Lady? Marinette!?”

Death’s cold arms wrapped around her, and as quickly as she had come, she was gone.

_ I love you I love you I love you. We’re meant to be.  _

**Five**

“You can’t be serious.” Emma rolled her eyes as she laid the sassy statement on me. 

“I am  _ so  _ serious Miss Thing. You know we visit mom on Sundays.”

As we pulled into a parking spot alongside the memorial garden of fallen Parisian heroes Emma threw one last annoyed look over her shoulder before getting out of the car. She strode toward the spot she knew we we headed for, a shaded area of the garden surrounded by elegant trees in their seasonal spring bloom of pastel pink flowers. There was a light breeze in the air, catching some of the blossoms and causing them to float to the ground. I trailed behind Emma to the specific headstone. Marinette’s, a custom stone with a cat and a ladybug print hidden within its intricate design. Emma was kneeling in the grass, resting a flower plucked from one of the trees against the base of the stone. 

“I didn’t even know her dad.”

I knelt alongside her, placing an arm on her shoulder. 

“I know that sometimes it’s hard to not have kno-”

“I don’t need the speech Dad!!! I need her! I want her to be with me! You show me all these pictures, tell me all these stories, and I…. I….”

Her long black hair shielded her face from my view, but I watched her shoulders gently shake along with the tears that quietly pattered against her knees. 

“I miss her too. All of the time. After all of these years and I still think. I know. If I could trade. If I could give her life for mine, then she’d be here now. I would do it in a heartbeat.” She looked up at this, her tear stained cheeks glinting in the small patches of sunlight. 

“Dad no, you do-” I held up my hand to stop her and she looked annoyed. She looked like her mother.

“Let me finish. I would trade my life for hers without question, but we don’t always get those kinds of options in life. And even if we do, I know that’s not what she would want. She wanted me to live as much as I want her here right now. There are hard choices in life and there are even harder choices that we never have a say in.

“I want you to know that from the moment I laid my eyes on you I was in love. When your mom left I didn't think I would feel love again, but you proved me so wrong kiddo. You’re everything your mom was and more. You’re your own individual, and the choices that life makes for us and the ones we make ourselves define who we are as human beings in this world. That’s why-”

I pulled a small token wrapped in cloth from my pocket and proceeded to place it in the palm of her hand, enclosing her fingers over it.

“-a gift like this is so special. Your mother wanted you to be part of this world. I was hesitant but, like always, I see that she was right after all. It’s a big responsibility, but with this you’ll have both a part of myself and your mother with you at all times. And you will, without a doubt, meet the best friend of your life.” 

I flashed her a crooked smile and, with her eyebrows knit, Emma looked down to unwrap the gift.

At the center of her palm she held one shining ember ring.

**Author's Note:**

> I'M SO SORRY SORRY SORRY. I don't love pain I just wallow in it. I'm almost 100% sure this is a completed short work because I don't want to stay much longer in a world where Mari aint a part of the party. No thanks. I'll just see myself out thanks.


End file.
